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Tia Boon Sim graduated with honours from the School of Architecture, University of Singapore in 1979. She is currently overseeing the entire foundational curriculum for Temasek Design School that offers eight design programmes. Many of her students move on to becoming architects and designers. Her current interest in design education is in the search for new design teaching pedagogy and basic design typologies. She is instrumental in bridging the design education and the community arts in various academic and community based projects with the young people in Singapore. Tia is the founding members of Thow Kwang Clay Artists Studio at Pottery Jungle, Singapore involved in promoting the art of wood firing. She contributes to the Urban Sketchers blog from Singapore. (See Tia's work: blog, flickr)

Matthew Brehm is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Idaho, and a correspondent for Urban Sketchers. He holds degrees in architecture from the University of Notre Dame and the University of Oregon, and practiced architecture for a total of 12 years in Washington, DC, and Eugene, OR. His research focus is on the pedagogy of design communication, and specifically on analogue and digital techniques in the academic design studio. Each summer, he leads an 8-week architecture program in Rome, Italy, with location drawing being a prominent aspect of the program. His sketches have won awards on two occasions at the Design Communication Association's Biannual Juried Drawing Exhibit. (See Matt's work: blog, flickr)

Gabriel Campanario is a staff artist at The Seattle Times and has an MA in journalism from the University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain (1992). In April of 2009 he started a weekly feature at the paper called Seattle Sketcher, which has become a readers' favorite in print and online. Campanario's sketches have also been featured in publications and blogs around the world and he has been a visiting teacher at universities on both sides of the Atlantic. He started the popular Urban Sketchers blog in 2008 and is now the board president of the Urban Sketchers nonprofit. (See Gabi's work: blog, flickr)

Simonetta Capecchi completed her PhD degree at the University of Naples (Italy) in Architectural Drawing. She currently works as an illustrator and lectures at the Faculty of Architecture in Naples. Since 2006, she has curated four editions of "In viaggio col taccuino," an exhibition on travel sketchbooks with conferences and workshops. A selection from this exibition has been published in book form (Sguardi su Napoli, 2009) and several works are included in her blog: www.inviaggiocoltaccuino.com. Simonetta's sketchbooks have been included in many international exibitions and featured in edited collections such as Danny Gregory?s An illustrated life (2008). She contributes to "Urban Sketchers" from Naples, where she lives. (See Simo's work: blog, flickr)

Frank Ching is Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington, having recently retired after over 35 years of teaching. He is the bestselling author of numerous books on architecture and design, all published by John Wiley & Sons. His works have been translated into over sixteen languages and are regarded as classics for their renowned graphic presentations. Awards that Professor Ching has received include the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Design from The Nottingham Trent University; a Citation for Excellence in International Architecture Book Publishing; an AIA Institute Honor for Collaborative Achievement; and a National Design Award from the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.

Jason Das is a web developer, illustrator, and multi-disciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY. A pioneering sketch-blogger, he started his site Gas Water Nothing in 2003. His bold watercolors of commuters and streetscapes have been featured in local media and exhibits. He has a special interest in online communities, productive social networking, and web-based software. Das grew up in Pennsylvania and has a degree in Visual Arts from Columbia University. (See Jason's work: blog, flickr)

Isabel Fiadeiro is a Portuguese painter living in Nouakchott, Mauritania, where she promotes the work of local artists and craft makers through Galerie Sinaa, an art gallery she opened in September of 2009. Fiadeiro has traveled and sketched around West African countries since moving to Mauritania in 2004, staying with local families and sharing their daily life. In January 2008 she spent five weeks in the Saharawi refugee camps in Tindouf, Algeria, sketching the daily life of the women in the camps. Fiadeiro studied at Falmouth School of Arts, Cornwall and has a degree in Fine Arts from Wimbledon School of Arts in London. (See Isabel's work: blog, flickr)

Kurt Hollomon holds more than 20 years experience in the commercial art world as an art director and designer. Today, he enjoys life as a freelance illustrator and instructor of Illustration and Drawing in the PNCA BFA program. Kurt contributes to the Urban Sketchers blog from Portland. (See Kurt's work: blog)

Lapin is a French illustrator working for fashion, magazines and advertising. He sketches everyday in his notebooks, using this endless archives as the elements of his illustrations. He was the founder of the French magazine Pa-, and had edited various facsimiles of his notebooks. His illustration works were published in "Illustration Now 3" (Taschen) and "Illusive 3" (die Gestalten Verlag) and by many creative reviews as Elephant (UK), Computer Arts (UK), Grab (Italy). He was selected by the international illustration forum Illustrative as young talent 2007. Lapin participated in collective exhibits in France, England, Spain, Italy and Portugal is working on his first solo show in Paris. Lapin is the USK correspondent from Barcelona. (See Lapin's work: blog, flickr)

Veronica Lawlor is an illustrator and president of Studio1482, an illustration collective in New York City. She teaches drawing and illustration at Parsons School of Design, Pratt Institute and Dalvero Academy. Ms. Lawlor has created reportage illustrations for numerous clients, including 3M, Brooks Brothers and the Hyatt hotels. Her on-site drawings of the September 11th attacks on NYC are part of the Newseum, the museum of journalism in Washington DC. (See Veronica's work: blog)

about the symposium

In late July of 2010, the city of Portland, Oregon (USA), became a canvas for drawing enthusiasts from around the world as Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) and Urban Sketchers (USK) hosted the 1st International Urban Sketching Symposium. The three-day event attracted participants and presenters from diverse corners of the world. In addition to the U.S., other countries represented were Australia, Belgium, Canada, Mauritania, Italy, Japan, Singapore, the Dominican Republic and Spain. The program consisted of lectures, panels, exhibits and field sketching sessions led by a diverse team of international presenters with backgrounds in art education, architecture, illustration and journalism. This blog documents the experience since the Symposium was announced in March. A selection of photographs from the event can be found in this flickr collection. Sketches produced by participants during the event can also be seeing on the Symposium flickr group.

Other Portland resources

World Wide SketchCrawl Day

We'll be observing the 28th World Wide SketchCrawl on July 31st, the third day of the Symposium, in addition to the scheduled program. The global sketching marathons were started by San Francisco artist Enrico Casarosa in 2004. It's a day when people across the world get out to draw wherever they are. Visit the SketchCrawl Forum to arrange sketching meetups in Portland and elsewhere.